A typical livestock feeder of one known design includes an elongated trough or tube in which a conveyor, usually an auger, moves feed lengthwise of the bottom of the trough so that feed drops through longitudinally spaced-apart openings in the bottom of the trough into vertically placed drop tubes and hence to feeder means at the bottoms of the drop tubes. The feeder means may be a lower trough or simply the floor from which the animals eat.
Feed may be dropped unimpeded into a large hopper until it fills to the level of the bottom of the drop tube, the drop tube then fills until fill, thus allowing feed to be conveyed past the first drop tube to the next. This filling process continues until the last hopper is full. The animals are then allowed to consume feed at will. In at least one instance, as in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,728 to Van Gilst, the drop tubes are allowed to fill and the animals are allowed to eat at will for a timed interval, then a vertically shiftable conical valve is closed at the bottom of the drop tube preventing feed from flowing and providing a period of fast. There are usually two or three periods of at will feeding followed by periods of fasting daily.
In another instance (U.S. Pat. No. 3,504,654 to Geerlings) each valve is in the form of a manually operated, arcuate gate. The U.S. Pat. No. 2,714,023 to St. Pierre shows another form of gate valve, while the U.S. Pat. No. 4,154,376 to Jones discloses a shiftable plate or shutter.
It is not enough to periodically release a measured amount of material in each drop tube, but it is necessary to block the drop tube against delivery of more than the predetermined amount, it being realized that the drop tube may contain more than the desired amount stored above the valve. Hence, this device must be capable of blocking the material in excess of the measured amount. This result is achieved, according to the present invention, by a basically cylindrical member or element, one in each drop tube. Each element intersects its drop tube on a horizontal axis and the general cylindrical nature of the element is interrupted to provide a pocket or recess dimensioned to hold the predetermined amount of feed. Each element initially faces upwardly to receive this amount while an amount in excess of the desired amount is stored above the element in the drop tube. The element is inverted by being rotatable about its axis so that the pocket, facing downwardly, dumps the measured amount to fall down the drop tube while the cylindrical, unpocketed surface of the element faces upwardly to cut off and block further gravitational flow of material. The basic diameter of the element is substantially equal to the inside diameter of the drop tube.
A further feature is that the elements are coaxial on the horizontal axis and are interconnected by means enabling inversion and re-inversion of the elements in unison. In one form of the invention, the elements are seaprate from each other but joined by a shaft. In another form, the elements are parts of an elongated cylindrical tube, the walls of which are interrupted at spaced intervals, according to the spacing of the drop tubes, to provide the pockets.
It is also a feature of the invention to provide a simplified design leading to a low-cost, long-lived construction, one that is easy to operate and maintain.
Still further features and advantages will appear as preferred embodiments of the invention are disclosed herein.